The objectives of this project are to identify and describe the environmental determinants of cancer in areas of the U.S. at high risk of cancer through the use of analytic epidemiologic techniques. Toward this end a series of case-control studies has been initiated to test a number of hypotheses regarding the origins of cancer. Presently ongoing are interview studies of lung cancer in northeast Florida; mesothelioma in tidewater Virginia; esophageal cancer in Washington, D.C.; nasal and oral cancer in parts of the South; renal cancer in Minnesota; lung, pancreas, and stomach cancers in southern Louisiana; and lung cancer in eastern Pennsylvania. All areas are at high risk for these tumors. Interviewing was completed during the year for studies of colon cancer in rural Nebraska and lung cancer in coastal Virginia, and data analysis is in progress. A random telephone survey of smoking habits in Georgia showed no coastal excess, highlighting the importance of industrial factors (particularly shipbuilding) in the clustering of lung cancer along the coast, identified by a case-control study of this tumor completed during the year.